My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Condition:
well-inked and crisp impression trimmed to the image borderline. The sheet is
in a virtually faultless condition.

I am selling
this seemingly spontaneously drawn etching based on the design of the legendary
Raphael (1483–1520) who had passed away only 95 years before this print was
created, for AU$257 (currently US$198.08/EUR183.96/GBP158.83 at the time of this
listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are
interested in purchasing this rare Renaissance period print of Adam and Eve,
please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal
invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

There is a
certain attribute that is somewhat unforgettable about the prints by Borgianni
and that is the date: “1615.” All of Borgianni’s prints were executed in this
year (or close to it). I would like to add that this was also the year that he
died, but, as he died inconveniently on January 15 the following year, this
would be untrue. If only all artists could fit their lifetime of printmaking
into a single year like Borgianni, historical research would be so easy.

Beyond
Borgianni’s commitment to printmaking in his final year(s) there are a few
notable qualities to his prints that I find very interesting.

The first
quality that I admire is his confidence and unapologetic use of the etching
needle to draw directly on the plate without preliminary drawing. The evidence
of this practice is clear; for instance, note the pentimenti (i.e. drawing on
top of faulty underdrawing where the underdrawing shows through) in the
corrections to the drawing of Eve’s back and the revised drawing of Adam’s
extended right leg. To my eyes, this directness is the sign of a great master
who doesn’t feel compelled hide revisions. Essentially such work seems genuine,
honest and intimate.

The second
quality that fascinates me is Borgianni’s use of a crudely portrayed
three-dimensional framing edge on all but four of his prints. This “fake frame”
involves a narrow (.5cm) border that is shaded to suggest the direction that
light "falls" on the image drawn within the border. Borgianni may have simply reproduced what he observed when drawing the architectural elements
painted in Raphael’s frescos in the Vatican loggias (i.e. corridors in the
Apostolic Palace), but his decision to include the framing edges in his prints
is very deliberate and the edges help to give pictorial depth to his images.